Memorial Day weekend: a time for gaming deals, double-experience events, and launches. Mainly launches this year! Black Desert has landed on Steam, The Elder Scrolls Online began the PC head start for Morrowind, Marvel Heroes soft launched on PS4, Legends of Aria kicked off its alpha, Revelation Online and Shroud of the Avatar saw major content updates, and both Kritika Online and Worlds Adrift entered closed beta.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Elder Scrolls Online’s Morrowind early access launches today – are you playing? - [AL:ESO]The Elder Scrolls Online's Morrowind not-an-expansion lands on PC this morning, at least for those of you who preordered to pick up early access and had the foresight to take…
EVE Online scam highlights the value of friendships over ISK - [AL:EVE]If you've ever studied the psychology of con men and abusers, you know that one of the ways they get people to trust them is to offer some sort of…
Black Desert leaps to Steam today, launches the Striker class, and bans exploiters - [AL:BDO]It's a huge day for Black Desert fans! Not only is the game launching on Steam later today (the splash page is up, just not downloadable yet), but the Striker…
Tamriel Infinium: An alternative approach to playing Elder Scrolls Online Morrowind - [AL:ESO]href="/tag/elder-scrolls-online/">Elder Scrolls Online chapter of Morrowind started this week. Unlike other times that we've streamed together when most of what we did was questing, we just explored the island this…
Perfect Ten: Understanding MMORPG Warriors - There is always a Warrior. Every game has a Warrior. No matter what other class options it has, a Warrior is in that list. Star Wars: The Old Republic takes…
Rockstar delays Red Dead Redemption 2 to 2018 - Rockstar Games announced last night that it's delayed Red Dead Redemption 2 to spring 2018 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, a result of the fact that it'll be Rockstar's…
Wild West Online addresses Sergey Titov rumors [Updated] - Rumors spread on Reddit yesterday suggesting that Sergey Titov is involved in Wild West Online have been partially but not fully debunked. Titov, you'll recall, was the controversial personality behind scandal-riddled The…
Massively Overthinking: Disentangling MMO classes and races - Last week, a guildie of mine mentioned that he'd been interested in Crowfall until he realized he couldn't be a gerbil (Guineacean) of the class of his choosing. It was…
A small Blizzard team might be working on a mobile Warcraft game - Ready to play some Warcraft on your mobile device? What are we saying, of course you are. Other than the various companion apps to World of Warcraft, and of course,…
Secret World Legends outlines how its free-to-play model allows you to unlock things without cash - [AL:SWL]The good news for Secret World Legends players is that you won't need to pay money for the game. You won't even need to pay money for things in the…
Ashes of Creation revises referral program, unlocks Underrealm race, and shows freehold housing - With less than a week to go in its fundraising campaign, Ashes of Creation has raised over $2.5 million and become the most successful Kickstarted MMORPG of all time. This…
The Witcher card game Gwent enters open beta - There seems to be a very rabid, very enthusiastic community that's developed around CD Projekt Red's The Witcher (particularly its third installment), to the point where it might be making…
The Game Archaeologist: How Sceptre of Goth shaped the MMO industry - When it comes to text-based MMOs created in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s, the sheer number of them would blot out the sky. There are certainly more multi-user dungeons (MUDs)…
Destiny 2: ‘The life of a cheater will be nasty, brutish, and short’ - [AL:D2]Bungie's weekly dev blog is still riding high off the big Destiny 2 reveal, but that doesn't mean the text doesn't share anything in new. In fact, we learn just…
Another study finds Pokemon Go improves players’ physical activity - Yet another academic group has published research suggesting that Pokemon Go can be a useful tool for promoting exercise. Duke University researchers funded by the American Heart Association studied 167…
LOTRO confirms Chance Thomas’ return to score Mordor, says it will be his ‘darkest’ work yet - [AL:LOTRO]It was perhaps the worst-kept secret for Lord of the Rings Online's upcoming Mordor expansion, but now it's officially confirmed: Composer Chance Thomas is returning to score the MMO. Saying…
Legends of Aria’s alpha has begun, infusing the Shards Online sandbox with MMORPG - Back at PAX East, MMO players were startled but pleased at the revelation that Shards Online was getting a massive revamp as well as a new name: Legends of Aria.…
The Elder Scrolls Online shows off what you get for pre-ordering Morrowind - [AL:ESO]Want to grab a little extra when you start your adventure in The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind? You should probably pick up the expansion's Discovery Pack because it contains stuff.…
Choose My Adventure: Finding a hat in Neverwinter - [AL:NW]When we last left off in Neverwinter, I was finding out whether or not people wanted me to purchase the game's subscription-but-not-really. You voted a resounding no, although quite a…
How Overwatch was born in the ashes of Blizzard’s Project Titan MMO - A new piece out on the PlayStation blog is picking at MMO players' Project Titan scar. Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan explains that after the seven-year Project Titan MMO collapsed, its dev…
En Masse sends Kritika Online to closed beta today – come snag a beta key! - [AL:Krit]Happy closed beta day to Kritika Online! Joining today's never-ending roster of launches and pre-launches is En Masse's new action MMO, expected to run in a closed testing phase through June…
World of Tanks apologizes for threatening to censor YouTuber - World of Tanks developer Wargaming has apologized for essentially threatening to abuse YouTube's copyright law to retaliate against an unpaid promotional partner who published a video critical of the company. YouTuber SirFoch's original…
The jury is out on whether or not DOTA 2 actually belongs to Valve - It's not very interesting to see a big company take knockoff companies to court to argue that the knockoff companies are violating intellectual property. It is, however, quite interesting when…
Revelation Online’s Iceborn update melts on your PC today - [AL:Rev]Revelation Online's Iceborn update is live in the game today as promised. The big draw is the faction war for level 40+ characters, along with what My.com has dubbed "Inner Demon Trials,"…
Warframe developer confirms retro hybrid shooter Keystone - [AL:WarF]Warframe has been positively kicking ass this past year, doing what MMOs seldom do: continue breaking its own concurrency records four years in. So is Digital Extremes content to just roll…
Rootin’ tootin’ saloons confirmed for Wild West Online - What would a western MMORPG be like if it didn't include the classic saloon? A darn poor game, that's what. Fortunately, Wild West Online confirmed that these taverns will be…
Secret World Legends: UI changes, blade combat, and City of the Sun God - [AL:SWL]The latest Secret World Legends dev stream dished out another serving of information as closed beta continues through the fourth phase. Along with showing off UI changes and combat with…
Improbable’s plan for rescuing the MMO genre from ‘nuclear winter’ involves a crapton of money - Improbable keeps popping up in news stories relating to MMOs lately -- that's thanks to SpatialOS, what the company is calling a "distributed computing platform for building large virtual worlds…
Marvel Heroes Omega soft launches on PlayStation 4 today - Console geeks assemble! It's time to throw off the shackles of responsibility, hygiene, and relationships to devote yourself to a straight week or two of non-stop superhero action. It's OK. We'll…
Ashes of Creation aims to be biggest MMORPG Kickstarter of all time - "I think in a couple of days we may be the number one Kickstarted MMORPG ever." Dream big, Intrepid Studios! As Ashes of Creation bears down on its crowdfunding home…
Liveblogging the Final Fantasy XIV Letter from the Producer LIVE XXXVI - [AL:FFXIV]For those who've somehow missed it, Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida regularly does live letters for the community. We don't usually liveblog them because, well, most of them…
World of Tanks demonstrates how to chill games criticism on YouTube in three easy steps - The World of Tanks community is in uproar this week over the removal of a prominent YouTuber from the game's developer-backed promotional program and the deletion of a critical video…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 118: Crowfall breaks up the band
The Stream Team: A first look at Legends of Aria (and a giveaway!)
The Stream Team: A very volcanic ARK adventure
The Stream Team: Back to the beginning in Shroud of the Avatar
The Stream Team: Starting a Warden in Elder Scrolls Online’s Morrowind
The Stream Team: A quick look at Kritika Online
The Stream Team: Dealings with SWTOR’s Dr Oggurobb
The Stream Team: EverQuest II’s pirate-filled Proving Grounds
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Would you play WoW without expansions?
Know Your Lore: What comes next after Legion?
Do you follow Blizzard to other games?
Every week, get caught up on the MMO genre’s latest news and Massively OP’s best content in our MMO Week in Review! Want more roundups of content? Try Friday’s Betawatch for MMO testing highlights, Saturday’s Make My MMO for MMO crowdfunding updates, and Sunday’s The MOP Up, which mops up all the little bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
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